The Raft looks uncannily cheerful from a few miles away. A dozen searchlights, and at least that many lasers, are mounted on the towering superstructure of the Enterprise, waving back and forth against the clouds like a Hollywood premiere. Closer up, it doesn't look so bright and crisp. The vast matted tangle of small boats radiates a murky cloud of yellow light that spoils the contrast.

A couple of patches of the Raft are burning. Not a nice cheery bonfire type of thing, but a high burbling flame with black smoke sliding out of it, like you get from a large quantity of gasoline.

"Gang warfare, maybe," Eliot theorizes.

"Energy source," Hiro guesses.

"Entertainment," Fisheye says. "They don't have cable on the fucking Raft."

Before they really plunge into Hell, Eliot takes the lid off the fuel tank and slides the dipstick into there, checking the fuel supply. He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't look especially happy.

"Turn off all the lights," Eliot says when it seems they are still miles away. "Remember that we have already been sighted by several hundred or even several thousand people who are armed and hungry."

Vic is already going around the boat shutting off lights via the simple expedient of a ball peen hammer. Fisheye just stands there and listens intently to Eliot, suddenly respectful. Eliot continues. "Take off all the bright orange clothing, even if it means we get cold. From now on, we lay down on the decks, expose ourselves as little as possible, and we don't talk to each other unless necessary. Vic, you stay midships with your rifle and wait for someone to hit us with a spotlight. Anyone hits us with a spotlight from any direction, you shoot it out. That includes flashlights from small boats. Hiro, your job is gunwale patrol. You just keep going around the edges of this yacht, anywhere that a swimmer could climb up over the edge and slip on board, and when that happens, cut his arms off. Also, be on the lookout for any kind of grappling-hook type stuff. Fisheye, if any other floating object comes within a hundred feet of us, sink it.

"If you see Raft people with antennas coming out of their heads, try to kill them first, because they can talk to each other."

"Antennas coming out of their heads?" Hiro says.

"Yeah. Raft gargoyle types," Eliot says.

"Who are they?"

"How the fuck should I know? I've just seen 'em a few times, from a distance. Anyway, I'm going to take us straight in toward the center, and once we get close enough, I'll turn to starboard and swing around the Raft counterclockwise, looking for someone who might be willing to sell us fuel. If worse comes to worst and we end up on the Raft itself, we stick together and we hire ourselves a guide, because if we try to move across the Raft without the help of someone who knows the web, we'll get into a bad situation."

"Like what kind of a bad situation?" Fisheye asks.

"Like hanging on a rotted-out slime-covered cargo net between two ships rocking different ways, with nothing underneath us except ice water full of plague rats, toxic waste, and killer whales. Any questions?"

"Yeah," Fisheye says. "Can I go home now?"

Good. If Fisheye is scared, so's Hiro.

"Remember what happened to the pirate named Bruce Lee," Eliot says. "He was well-armed and powerful. He pulled up alongside a life raft full of Refus one day, looking for some poontang, and he was dead before he knew it. Now there are a lot of people who want to do that to us."

"Don't they have some kind of cops or something?" Vic says. "I heard they did."

In other words, Vic has killed a lot of time going to Raft movies in Times Square.

"The people up on the Enterprise operate in kind of a wrath-of-God mode," Eliot says. "They have big guns mounted around the edge of the flight deck-big Gatling guns like Reason except with larger bullets. They were originally put there to shoot down Exocet missiles. They strike with the force of a meteorite, If people act up out on the Raft, they will make the problem go away. But a little murder or riot isn't enough to get their attention. If it's a rocket duel between rival pirate organizations, that's different."

Suddenly, they've been nailed with a spotlight so big and powerful they can't look anywhere near it.

Then it's dark again, and a gunshot from Vic's rifle is searing and reverberating across the water.

"Nice shooting, Vic," Fisheye says.

"It's, like, one of them drug dealer boats," Vic says, looking through his magic sight. "Five guys on it. Headed our way." He fires another round. "Correction. Four guys on it." Boom. "Correction, they're not headed our way anymore." Boom. A fireball erupts from the ocean two hundred feet away. "Correction. No boat."

Fisheye laughs and actually slaps his thigh. "You recording all of this, Hiro?"

"No," Hiro says. "Wouldn't come out."

"Oh." Fisheye seems taken aback, like this changes everything.

"That's the first wave," Eliot says. "Rich pirates looking for easy pickings. But they've got a lot to lose, so they scare easy."

"Another big yacht-type boat is out there," Vic says, "but they're turning away now."

Above the deep chortling noise of their yacht's big diesel, they can hear the high whine of outboard motors.

"Second wave," Eliot says. "Pirate wannabes. These guys will come in a lot faster, so stay sharp."

"This thing has millimeter wave on it," Fisheye says. Hiro looks at him; his face is illuminated from below by the glow of Reason's built-in screen. "I can see these guys like it's fucking daylight."

Vic fires several rounds, pops the clip out of his rifle, shoves in a new one. A zodiac zips past, skittering across the wavetops, strafing them with weak flashlight beams. Fisheye fires a couple of short bursts from Reason, blasting clouds of warm steam into the cold night air, but misses them.

"Save your ammo," Eliot says. "Even with Uzis, they can't hit us until they slow down a little bit. And even with radar, you can't hit them."

A second zodiac whips past them on the other side, closer than the last one. Vic and Fisheye both hold their fire. They hear it orbiting them, swinging back around the way it came.

"Those two boats are getting together out there," Vic says. "They got two more of them. A total of four. They're talking."

"We've been reconned," Eliot says, "and they're planning their tactics. The next time is for real."

A second later, two fantastically loud blasts sound from the rear of the yacht, where Eliot is, accompanied by brief flashes of light. Hiro turns around to see a body collapsing to the deck. It's not Eliot. Eliot is crouching there holding his oversized halibut shooter.

Hiro runs back, looks at the dead swimmer in the dim light scattering off the clouds, He's naked except for a thick coating of black grease and a belt with a gun and a knife in it. He's still holding onto the rope that he used to pull himself onboard. The rope is attached to a grappling hook that has caught in the jagged, broken fiberglass on one side of the yacht.

"Third wave is coming a little early," Eliot says, his voice high and shaky. He's trying so hard to sound cool that it has the opposite effect. "Hiro, this gun's got three rounds left in it, and I'm saving the last one for you if any more of these motherfuckers get on board."

"Sorry," Hiro says. He draws the short wakizashi. He would feel better if he could carry his nine in the other hand, but he needs one hand f............